Jiva-Atoms: Subjectively, i.e. Jivas
pp.399-405
AT the outset of this chapter we may note that the aspects of size, (See p.368 supra) specialised with reference to the Jiva, would be 'range or extent of consciousness in all its manifestations, cognition, desire, and action', 'its definiteness or intensity', and its 'calibre or scope generally', These would subdivide into 'broad-mindedness, narrow-mindedness, rationality or common sense', 'vagueness or weakness, clearness or strength, distinctness or firmness', 'long-headedness or far-sightedness, width of interests, depth', etc.
As to specialisations of duration and vibration, it need only be said that the words used in connection with matter in the preceding chapter apply, by ordinary usage, to corresponding features of mind also.
With these brief suggestions, we may pass on to the features more prominently characteristic of the Jiva, as the embodiment of consciousness.
Jiva as Consciousness
The entire nature of consciousness is exhaustively described by and contained in the words: "I-This-Not (Am)". This is the Absolute-Consciousness, the true Chid-ghana, 'compacted Chit', MahA-Samvit, 'Great Consciousness', which, in its transcendence of and absolution from numbers, limitations, and relations, includes all that is governed by numbers, limitations, and relations, and indeed is all.
This Consciousness is the Absolute, and includes both the factors of what is ordinarily distinguished as dvam-dvam, pair, of Chit, 'the Conscious' (corresponding to Pratyag-AtmA) and JaDa, 'the Unconscious' (corresponding to Mula-prakrti). It may not unreasonably be objected, because of this fact, that the word 'Consciousness' is not altogether suitable as an epithet for the Absolute, even with qualificatory adjectives. But it becomes unavoidable, now and again, to describe the Absolute in special terms borrowed from the .triplets of attributes of Pratyag-AtmA and Mulaprakrti, which are the Pen-ultimates of the World- Process, as the Absolute is the very Ultimate and the all.
The nearest approach to the Ultimate is obviously by the Penultimates; hence the necessity of speaking in terms of the latter; and this is why Brahma(n) is described, in Upanishats and other works on Vedanta, now as 'Pure Consciousness' or Shuddha-Chit, again as MahA-Sat or 'Boundless Being', and finally as Ananda-ghana or Ananda-maya, 'composed or compacted of Bliss'; also as the Tamas beyond Tamas, 'the darkness beyond darkness', Shuddha or 'pure' Sattva, and Paro-Rajas, transcending-Rajas. And so, for our present purposes, we have to speak of Brahma(n) as the Absolute-Consciousness, slightly emphasising the Pratyag-Atmic aspect thereof rather than the Mula-prakrtic; but carefully guarding the while against possible misconstruction, by openly stating that fact at the outset.
Three Functions of Mind
In its unique completeness, then, this Absolute-Consciousness includes every possible cognition, every possible desire, every possible action, all at once and for ever; even as it includes all possible objects of cognition, desire, and action, namely qualities, substances, and movements.
But, taken as consisting of successive and separable parts in the pseudo-infinity of World-Process, it appears as broken up into three aspects jnAna-cognition, ichChhA-desire, and kriyA-action. How these three and only three aspects arise in the Jiva, on the collision and coalescence of Self and Not-Self, has been already outlined in chapter IX supra, on Pratyag-AtmA, where the genesis of Sat-Chit-Ananda is explained. To restate:
In Terms of Subject and Object
An ego bound to a non-ego in the bond of the logion is necessarily bound by a triple bond at three points; is in contact with three corresponding points in the non-ego, viz., jnanA-ichChA-kriyA, on the side of the ego, and guNa-dravya-karma, respectively, on that of the non-ego. '1-this-(am) not'--in this fact we see the following:
(1) 'I' and 'this', being placed opposite to each other, are either turning face towards face, or face away from face. The ego cognises, perceives, the non-ego, receives into itself [i]reflection]/i] and imprint of that non-ego (metaphorically as well as literally, as will appear later), or ignores and forgets it. This is (dual or, with a middle state, triple) jnAna.
(2) 'I' tends to move towards or away from 'not-I'. This tendency is desire, corresponding to the affirmation-negation of Shakti. It is (dual or rather triple) ichChA.
(3) The ego actually moves towards or away from, the non-ego, This is (dual or rather triple) kriyA.The Functions as Consumers
See pp. 165-169 supra. Desire may be said to correspond with Negation in this obvious sense: It consumes its object. It denies to it a separate existence and devours it, swallows, merges its object into the desiring self.
Food is eaten up by the hungry person. Man and woman espouse each other, two becoming one. When an English poet sings, "For each man kills the thing he loves," etc., the thought, though put in an extreme and evil form, is not altogether different. The gems and jewels and fineries that people admire and desire, they put on their persons and make them part of their 'personality'.
The three (psycho-) physical appetites, for food, adornment, sex, are thus 'negation-al' of the separateness of their objects. That which was a separate idam, or etat, 'this', is converted by them into mama, 'mine' (the diluted weaker form of 'I', its 'sphere of influence', its 'aura'), and then into aham, 'I', (Witness, how politico-economic 'spheres of influence', 'protectorates', 'mandates', 'markets', 'trusts', become absorbed).
The three corresponding (physico-) psychical appetites, for honor, wealth, and power, respectively, behave in the same way. Wealth becomes 'my property', power says 'I am the State', the honoured person begins to think 'these, who honour me, are my obedient followers'.
In a somewhat similar sense, knowledge and action also may be said to tend to abolish the separate existence of their objects. To know, to understand, 'another', fully, we must 'get into his (or its) skin', 'see with his eyes', 'feel as he feels', 'put ourselves into his position', 'stand in his shoes'; we must sym-pathise (or em-pathise, as some psycho-analysts say) with him to the extent of identifying him with ourselves.
This is the real significance of the rapport of yoga-samAdhi. (Yogasutra, i.43, and iii.3). We 'understand', to the acute extent of 'feeling', every little pain and pleasure of our body, because we have identified ourselves with it; this is one aspect of the truth indicated in the doctrine of solipsism; this is why mothers 'understand' the pains of their babies. That action subserves the purpose of 'identifying' its object with or 'approximating' to, or subordinating it to the will of the actor, goes without saying, seeing that action arises out of desire. But this feature of knowledge and action is due to their inseparable connection with desire. In the case of 'aversion', 'ignoring' and 'putting away', 'negation' appears in another aspect; abolition of the 'other' is still there, though in another manner.
Primal Libido, Elan Vital, Horme, Appetite, Urge and Surge of Life, Shakti-Desire, KAma, is for Self-Realisation, SyAm, 'May I be'; its next development is Bahu SyAm, 'May I be Much or More; the further and final is Bahu-dhA SyAm, 'May I be Many or Many-formed'.
Samskrta names are
• Loka-eshaNA, desire for 'local habitation and a name', appetite for Self-preservation of physical-self by food, and of psychical-self by honor and glory, name and fame;
• Vitta-eshaNA, for Self-expansion by possessions, adornment, homestead, wealth, property; and
• DAra-suta-(Shakti)-eshaNA, for self-continuation (immortalisation, sempiternalisation) by spouse-and-child and power over them (in the present, as well as in the future, by will and testament).
The first corresponds broadly to jnAna and dharma; the second to kriyA and artha; the third to ichChA and kAma[/b]. All are inter-dependent; indeed, barely possible to distinguish. They are more fully dealt with in Science of Emotions, and Science of Social Organisation (which deals specially with (dharma-artha-kAma). Incidentally, it may be noted that the present work, The Science of Peace, corresponds with JnAna; The Science of Emotions, with IchChA; The Science of Social Organisation, with KriyA; while The Science of Self may be regarded as summation.
All these are but modifications, forms, aspects, or degrees of the main fact of identification or separation between Self and Not-Self.
Fichte seems to have endeavoured to express the same or a similar idea thus: "(1) The ego exhibits itself as limited by the non-ego (i.e., the ego is cognitive); (2) conversely, the ego exhibits the non-ego as limited by the ego (i.e., the ego is active)." (Stirling's Schwegler, p.265.)
Action between Ego and Non-ego
In other words, we may say that there is a mutual action and cognition between the ego and the non-ego: the action of the non-ego upon the ego is the cognition of the non-ego by the ego; and the cognition (if the expression may be used) by the non-ego of the ego is conversely the action of the ego on the non-ego.
When the ego impresses itself on the non-ego, we have action from the standpoint of the ego, and cognition from that of the non-ego.
When the non-ego imprints itself on the ego, we have cognition from the standpoint of the ego, and action from that of the non-ego.
To this it should be added that the condition intermediate between cognition and action, intermediate between the ego's 'being influenced and shaped' by the non-ego, on the one hand, and its 'influencing and shaping' the non-ego, on the other, is desire. The corresponding condition of the non-ego would probably be best described by the word tension. This desire is always hidden, while cognition and action are manifest.
Multifarious Triplets
Multifarious triplets arise under cognition, desire, and action.
(1) 'Waking, sleeping, dreaming'; 'presentation oblivion, representation'; 'knowing, forgetting, recollection'; 'truth, error, illusion'; 'sensation, conception, perception'; 'term, proposition, syllogism'; 'pada, vAkya, mAna'; 'concept or notion, judgment, reasoning'; 'reasonableness or sobriety, fancy, imagination'; 'real or actual, unreal or fanciful , ideal'; 'observation, thought, science'; 'concentration, meditation, attention'; attention, distraction, re-searoh (or rapport, union, yoga-samadhi)', etc.
(2) 'Like, dislike, toleration'; 'love, hate, indifference'; 'partiality, carelessness, justice'; 'desire, emotion, will'; etc.
(3) 'Action, reaction, alternation or balance'; 'activity, indolence, effort' 'restlessness, fatigue, perseverance'; 'act, labour, industry'; 'action, plan, scheme'; 'evolution, involution, revolution'; etc.
These may be treated of in detail later on.The third is a very important triplet, which is but another aspect of and supplementary to the Law of Causality, and explains how the fundamental Unity is being constantly restored in succession also, as causality preserves it in continuity. "Past reason bunted, and, no sooner had, past reason hated." First 'am this', and then '(am) not this', the net result being always the I.
In the meanwhile, some observations as to the general relations of subject and object, individuals and the surroundings they live amidst, the more prominent conditions of the life of the World-Process, may be recorded here.Pranava-Vada, 3 vols. (1910--1913), gives hundreds of such triads. "Every thing in this world is a trinity completed by the quaternary"; H.P.B., Isis Unvailed, I.508. Dr. James H. Cousins, A Study in Synthesis, (pub. 1934) works oat a number of quartettes in a fresh manner; the work should receive more attention than it seems to have yet received, from students of philosophy generally, and members of the Theosophical Society specially.
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